The Cardinal's snuff-box
Marchdale or not, my dear; though the name seems hardly likely to be
common--son of the late Mr. Archibald Marchdale, Q. C., and nephew of
old General Marchdale, of Whitstoke. A highly respectable and stodgy
Norfolk family. I've never happened to meet the man myself, but I'm
told he's a bit of an eccentric, who amuses himself globe-trotting, and
writing books (novels, I believe) which nobody, so far as I am aware,
ever reads. He writes under a pseudonym, Felix--I 'm not sure whether
it's Mildmay or Wildmay. He began life, by the bye, in the Diplomatic,
and was attache for a while at Berlin, or Petersburg, or somewhere; but
whether (in the elegant language of Diplomacy) he 'chucked it up,' or
failed to pass his exams, I'm not in a position to say. He will be near
thirty, and ought to have a couple of thousand a year--more or less.
His father, at any rate, was a great man at the bar, and must have left
something decent. And the only other thing in the world I know about
him is that he's a great friend of that clever gossip Margaret
Winchfield--which goes to show that however obscure he may be as a
scribbler of fiction, he must possess some redeeming virtues as a social
being--for Mrs. Winchfield is by no means the sort that falls in love
with bores. As you 're not, either--well, verbum sap., as my little
brother Freddie says.”
Beatrice gazed off, over the sunny lawn, with its trees and their
long shadows, with its shrubberies, its bright flower-beds, its marble
benches, its artificial ruin; over the lake, with its coloured sails,
its incongruous puffing steamboats; down the valley, away to the rosy
peaks of Monte Sfiorito, and the deep blue sky behind them. She plucked
a spray of jessamine, and brushed the cool white blossoms across her
cheek, and inhaled their fairy fragrance.
“An obscure scribbler of fiction,” she mused. “Ah, well, one is an
obscure reader of fiction oneself. We must send to London for Mr. Felix
Mildmay Wildmay's works.”
VIII
On Monday evening, at the end of dinner, as she set the fruit before
him, “The Signorino will take coffee?” old Marietta asked.
Peter frowned at the fruit, figs and peaches--
“Figs imperial purple, and blushing peaches”--
ranged alternately, with fine precision, in a circle, round a central
heap of translucent yellow grapes.
“Is this the produce of my own vine and fig-tree?” he demanded.
“Yes, Signorino; and also peach-tree,” replied Marietta.
“Peaches do not grow on fig-trees?” he enquired.
“No, Signorino,” said Marietta.
“Nor figs on thistles. I wonder why not,” said he.
“It is n't Nature,” was Marietta's confident generalisation.
“Marietta Cignolesi,” Peter pronounced severely, looking her hard in the
eyes, “I am told you are a witch.”
“No,” said Marietta, simply, without surprise, without emotion.
“I quite understand,” he genially persisted. “It's a part of the game
to deny it. But I have no intention of sprinkling you with holy water-so
don't be frightened. Besides, if you should do anything outrageous--if
you should turn into a black cat, and fly away on a broomstick, for
example--I could never forgive myself. But I'll thank you to employ
a little of your witchcraft on my behalf, all the same. I have lost
something--something very precious--more precious than rubies--more
precious than fine gold.”
Marietta's brown old wrinkles fell into an expression of alarm.
“In the villa? In the garden?” she exclaimed, anxiously.
“No, you conscientious old thing you,” Peter hastened to relieve her.
“Nowhere in your jurisdiction--so don't distress yourself: Laggiu,
laggiu.”
And he waved a vague hand, to indicate outer space.
“The Signorino should put up a candle to St. Anthony of Padua,”
counselled this Catholic witch.
“St. Anthony of Padua? Why of Padua?” asked Peter.
“St. Anthony of Padua,” said Marietta.
“You mean of Lisbon,” corrected Peter.
“No,” insisted the old woman, with energy. “St. Anthony of Padua.”
“But he was born in Lisbon;” insisted Peter.
“No,” said Marietta.
“Yes,” said he, “parola d' onore. And, what's more to the purpose, he
died in Lisbon. You clearly mean St. Anthony of Lisbon.”
“No!” Marietta raised her voice, for his speedier conviction. “There is
no St. Anthony of Lisbon. St. Anthony of Padua.”
“What's the use of sticking to your guns in that obstinate fashion?”
Peter complained. “It's mere pride of opinion. Don't you know that the
ready concession of minor points is a part of the grace of life?”
“When you lose an object, you put up a candle to St. Anthony of Padua,”
said Marietta, weary but resolved.
“Not unless you wish to recover the object,” contended Peter.
Marietta stared at him, blinking.
“I have no wish to recover the object I have lost,” he continued
blandly. “The loss of it is a new, thrilling, humanising experience.
It will make a man of me--and, let us hope, a better man. Besides, in
a sense, I lost it long ago--'when first my smitten eyes beat full
on her,' one evening at the Francais, three, four years ago. But it's
essential to my happiness that I should see the person into whose
possession it has fallen. That is why I am not angry with you for being
a witch. It suits my convenience. Please arrange with the powers of
darkness to the end that I may meet the person in question tomorrow
at the latest. No!” He raised a forbidding hand. “I will listen to
no protestations. And, for the rest, you may count upon my absolute
discretion.
'She is the darling of my heart
And she lives in our valley,'”
he carolled softly.
“E del mio cuore la carina,
E dimor' nella nostra vallettina,”
he obligingly translated. “But for all the good I get of her, she might
as well live on the top of the Cornobastone,” he added dismally. “Yes,
now you may bring me my coffee--only, let it be tea. When your coffee is
coffee it keeps me awake at night.”
Marietta trudged back to her kitchen, nodding at the sky.
The next afternoon, however, the Duchessa di Santangiolo appeared on the
opposite bank of the tumultuous Aco.
IX
Peter happened to be engaged in the amiable pastime of tossing
bread-crumbs to his goldfinches.
But a score or so of sparrows, vulture-like, lurked under cover of the
neighbouring foliage, to dash in viciously, at the critical moment, and
snatch the food from the finches' very mouths.
The Duchessa watched this little drama for a minute, smiling, in silent
meditation: while Peter--who, for a wonder, had his back turned to the
park of Ventirose, and, for a greater wonder still perhaps, felt no
pricking in his thumbs--remained unconscious of her presence.
At last, sorrowfully, (but there was always a smile at the back of her
eyes), she shook her head.
“Oh, the pirates, the daredevils,” she sighed.
Peter started; faced about; saluted.
“The brigands,” said she, with a glance towards the sparrows' outposts.
“Yes, poor things,” said he.
“Poor things?” cried she, indignant. “The unprincipled little monsters!”
“They can't help it,” he pleaded for them. “'It is their nature to.'
They were born so. They had no choice.”
“You actually defend them!” she marvelled, rebukefully.
“Oh, dear, no,” he disclaimed. “I don't defend them. I defend nothing.
I merely recognise and accept. Sparrows--finches. It's the way of the
world--the established division of the world.”
She frowned incomprehension.
“The established division of the world--?”
“Exactly,” said he. “Sparrows--finches the snatchers and the
snatched-from. Everything that breathes is either a sparrow or a finch.
'T is the universal war--the struggle for existence--the survival of
the most unscrupulous. 'T is a miniature presentment of what's going on
everywhere in earth and sky.”
She shook her head again.
“YOU see the earth and sky through black spectacles, I 'm afraid,”
she remarked, with a long face. But there was still an underglow of
amusement in her eyes.
“No,” he answered, “because there's a compensation. As you rise in the
scale of moral development, it is true, you pass from the category of
the snatchers to the category of the snatched-from, and your ultimate
extinction is assured. But, on the other hand, you gain talents and
sensibilities. You do not live by bread alone. These goldfinches, for a
case in point, can sing--and they have your sympathy. The sparrows
can only make a horrid noise--and you contemn them. That is the
compensation. The snatchers can never know the joy of singing--or of
being pitied by ladies.”
“N... o, perhaps not,” she consented doubtfully. The underglow of
amusement in her eyes shone nearer to the surface. “But--but they can
never know, either, the despair of the singer when his songs won't
come.”
“Or when the ladies are pitiless. That is true,” consented Peter.
“And meanwhile they get the bread, crumbs,” she said.
“They certainly get the bread-crumbs,” he admitted.
“I 'm afraid “--she smiled, as one who has conducted a syllogism
safely to its conclusion--“I 'm afraid I do not think your compensation
compensates.”
“To be quite honest, I daresay it does n't,” he confessed.
“And anyhow”--she followed her victory up--“I should not wish my garden
to represent the universal war. I should not wish my garden to be a
battle-field. I should wish it to be a retreat from the battle--an abode
of peace--a happy valley--a sanctuary for the snatched-from.”
“But why distress one's soul with wishes that are vain?” asked he. “What
could one do?”
“One could keep a dragon,” she answered promptly. “If I were you, I
should keep a sparrow-devouring, finch-respecting dragon.”
“It would do no good,” said he. “You'd get rid of one species of
snatcher, but some other species of snatcher would instantly pop UP.”
She gazed at him with those amused eyes of hers, and still again,
slowly, sorrowfully, shook her head.
“Oh, your spectacles are black--black,” she murmured.
“I hope not,” said he; “but such as they are, they show me the
inevitable conditions of our planet. The snatcher, here below, is
ubiquitous and eternal--as ubiquitous, as eternal, as the force of
gravitation. He is likewise protean. Banish him--he takes half a minute
to change his visible form, and returns au galop. Sometimes he's an
ugly little cacophonous brown sparrow; sometimes he's a splendid florid
money-lender, or an aproned and obsequious greengrocer, or a trusted
friend, hearty and familiar. But he 's always there; and he's always--if
you don't mind the vernacular--'on the snatch.'”
The Duchessa arched her eyebrows.
“If things are really at such a sorry pass,” she said, “I will commend
my former proposal to you with increased confidence. You should keep a
dragon. After all, you only wish to protect your garden; and that”--she
embraced it with her glance--“is not so very big. You could teach
your dragon, if you procured one of an intelligent breed, to devour
greengrocers, trusted friends, and even moneylenders too (tough though
no doubt they are), as well as sparrows.”
“Your proposal is a surrender to my contention,” said Peter. “You would
set a snatcher to catch the snatchers. Other heights in other lives,
perhaps. But in the dark backward and abysm of space to which our lives
are confined, the snatcher is indigenous and inexpugnable.”
The Duchessa looked at the sunny landscape, the bright lawns, the high
bending trees, with the light caught in the network of their million
leaves; she looked at the laughing white villas westward, the pale-green
vineyards, the yellow cornfields; she looked at the rushing river, with
the diamonds sparkling on its surface, at the far-away gleaming snows of
Monte Sfiorito, at the scintillant blue shy overhead.